Dang! I missed it. It would have been a nice gift!. I know they were selling the refurbished unit on B&N ($119 for WiFi and $149 for 3G, see link). $99 for 3G is just too good to miss.

When a 2nd generation device comes out, the manufacturer will generally start selling out refurbishing units and then start clearing out their inventory. The Color Nook has come out. Clearing of the existing Nook can mean either they decide to abandon the e-ink market or there will be a e-ink Nook 2 very soon.

Dang! I missed it. It would have been a nice gift!. I know they were selling the refurbished unit on B&N ($119 for WiFi and $149 for 3G, see link). $99 for 3G is just too good to miss.

When a 2nd generation device comes out, the manufacturer will generally start selling out refurbishing units and then start clearing out their inventory. The Color Nook has come out. Clearing of the existing Nook can mean either they decide to abandon the e-ink market or there will be a e-ink Nook 2 very soon.

The latest Nook SN >10031xxx has some hardware changes. I think they are all cost reductions, like soldered internal mem. At any rate, the $99 3G Nook sale moved 3979 units!

i purchased one of the $119 wifi nooks. there are no cracks on mine and it came with 1.4.1 software. kinda of diasppointing because i wanted to softroot so i can see all my books covers. its ok though because i still love it.

i purchased one of the $119 wifi nooks. there are no cracks on mine and it came with 1.4.1 software. kinda of diasppointing because i wanted to softroot so i can see all my books covers. its ok though because i still love it.

You can still softRoot it. Check NookDevs for the latest. May be a bit more involved, but I am sure someone will make comprehensive instructions.

which indicates that they are not really aware of what they have in inventory. At least with 1.4.1 you have a unit less than a month old which indicates that these are not "really" refurbished but actually some sort of inventory adjustment. Given the short time these have been for sale, barely a month, and the volume that they are selling on eBay, I cannot really see that many units being returned since the 1.4.1 version came out.

I have a 3G version coming so I will have to see what firmware it has. Unfortunately, the procedure for softrooting the 1.4.1 is really beyond the capability of most of us and with the sparse instructions, I'm just not ready to dive in.

For anyone interested, the $119 3G version is back again. With a one year warranty, they are killing anyone else who wants to dump their Nook on eBay.

Just an update, many, many of the feedback reports are indicating that these items have to be new and not returns. It is looking more and more like this is a way to dump inventory that is new by calling it refurb and undercutting the retail price but "protecting" the independent sellers. Years ago, when I was in the Photo industry we would see this all the time. Unfortunately, if this is the case, these will probably all have the newer than 1.4 firmware. Too bad.

On another note, the firmware has gotten up to 1.4.3 in anticipation of the 1.5 release sometime later this month.

You can buy directly from their site. And you can add the additional warranty for $39.95 (including accidental damage from handling). As to why they're also offering through numerous third party dealers, I have no idea.